Western Sydney International Dragway - Fuchs Nationals Report
ANDRA Championship Drag Racing can often be wild and unpredictable and that certainly was the case at the Fuchs Australian Nationals at Western Sydney Dragway last weekend.
The event served up highlights and lowlights in equal measure, with daubs of glory and pain meted out in equal measure, with the fickle Sydney weather delivering the final ironical blow.
The definite highlight of this season’s ANDRA Championship opener was the record Friday and Saturday night crowds and the strongest professional racer turnout since the debut of the Sydney venue in 2004.
Other memorable moments included Robin Judd, Ben Bray and John Zappia’s awesome 5-second Doorslammer blasts, the quickest ANDRA Pro Stock field in history after just two qualifying sessions and Phil Read’s record-approaching 4.5 second pass in Top Fuel.
However, the dramas also abounded, with the worst oil-down incident on track seen in venue history on Saturday night, that took some considerable time to clean up.
Added to all that was the fate of John Zappia and Kym Usher both flipping their cars over in the sand traps during ANDRA Top Doorslammer qualifying.
“I tagged the wall after the finish line and when I went to release the chutes, they didn’t release properly, so I had to yank at them again,” recalled Zappia after striking big trouble in the deep after a 5.983 Elapsed time. “By the time I did that, we were very deep and when we landed in the gravel trap, the Striker Monaro did a gentle rollover. Thankfully the damage wasn’t too significant and I have an awesome race team who was able to get me back out there the following day.”
Kym Usher also had issues in releasing the laundry in his Makita Falcon, and that also sent him deep into the beach.
However, the scariest moment of the weekend had to be Steve Read’s 500kmh excursion into the gravel, then catch netting, through the tyres and then finally arrested on the dirt mound behind, that left the huge WSID crowd hushed for some considerable time.
For what was a horrific Top Fuel crash, the only injury for ‘The Pom’ was a fractured pinky finger!
“I am greatful for the fact that we modified the chassis of this Readspeed car to cater for a HANS device in terms of head and neck restraint for me,” explained Read. “The Fuchs Australian Nationals was the first event we have ever used the HANS and I have no doubt it saved me from more serious injuries.”
As to the cause of the crash, it appears it came down to a throttle jam as he coasted more than 400 metres past the finish line with header-flames up high!
“We had issues with the throttle during the earlier qualifying session and we obviously did not resolve that in that later run. We were late on the chutes as well but these things happen so quickly and I wanted to make sure that we were entering the gravel trap in the middle and keep the car straight and thankfully we did.”
There can be no debate that the stringent ANDRA safety standards once again shone as Read entered a horror high-speed situation.
With Sunday raceday being cancelled due to rain, ANDRA Championship points will be awarded in relation to whether a competitor qualified within a competition field or not.
The next major ANDRA Championship at WSID is the Scott Kalitta Top Fuel Memorial on December 26 & 27, 2008 – featuring USA NHRA star Hillary Will.
